NOFX “UNOFFICIAL OCCUPY ANTHEM”

February 02, 2012Geordie Pleathur

NOFX “UNOFFICIAL OCCUPY ANTHEM”

(-Ruminating On The Death Of Liberty, On MLK DAY, by Geordie Pleathur)

“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.” (-Martin Luther King Jr. Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence)

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.” (– Albert Einstein)

‎”There are two American governments in existence now. One is for show…the one the most are familiar with and think is really theirs. And then there is the real government, where elections are never held, and public support is not necessary, nor sought.

The American shadow government is not going to voluntarily give back the power they have covertly taken through cold blooded subversion. We will have to take it back from them.” (-Jim W. Dean)

“If money is equal to free speech; having no money means having no speech.” (-Bill Moyers)

“The election of Obama was more triumph of illusion over substance. It was a skillful manipulation and betrayal of the public by a corporate power elite. We mistook style and ethnicity – an advertising tactic pioneered by Calvin Klein and Benetton – for progressive politics and genuine change.” ( –Chris Hedges, from “Death of the Liberal Class”)

‎”Dropping bombs from a safe height on an already hard-pressed people, whose infrastructure is in chaos from years of sanctions and who live under an oppressive regime, isn’t a ‘war’. It’s a turkey shoot.” (-Terry Jones)

“The bill continues to authorize heavy spending on defense despite the end of the 9-year-old war in Iraq. Ironically, the Senate vote came on the same day when Defense Secretary Panetta was in Baghdad officially declaring that our military mission there has ended and that virtually all of the combat troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year. At a time when we have tripled defense spending since 1997 and spend more today on defense than the rest of the world combined, I get concerned that my deficit-hawk friends say we’ve got to cut Social Security, Medicare, education, health care and other programs that help working families, but when it comes to defense spending the sky is the limit.
This bill also contains misguided provisions that in the name of fighting terrorism essentially authorize the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens without charges. While we must aggressively pursue international terrorists and all of those who would do us harm, we must do it in a way that protects the Constitution and the civil liberties which make us proud to be Americans.” (-Bernie Sanders VT)

“The United States functions under a cult of mindless optimism. To incur the ire of this cult is to be marked down as an unpatriotic knocker, not far removed from an atheistic communist. Those who demure are at least stigmatized as unwelcome pessimists although between optimism and pessimism there is another position: realism. And realism is roundly detested in practically all political quarters” (- Ferdinand Lundberg from “The Natural Depravity of Mankind”)

“In the wake of Citizens United, popular resistance is all that can prevent the richest economic interests in the country from buying the democratic process lock, stock, and barrel.” (- Bill Moyers)

‎”I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all – you live in the heart of the beast.” (- Che Guevara)

“The simple truth that ‘things could be worse,’ can’t distract us from the reality that things are quite bad right now. It’s virtually impossible for protesters to exercise their First Amendment rights … Americans are taught in school that moments of great social change always come when the public demands them, but what happens when the state no longer permits the public to make such demands?” (– Allison Kilkenny)

“Another ChickenHawk piece of shit. I love the part in Animal House when John Belushi spit his food on this guy.” (-Noted social commentator, Brian Waters, on Mitt Romney demonstrating in favor of Vietnam War draft, as a younger frat boy)

“Redefining the ‘terrorist’ label to include non-violent acts of civil disobedience has become a convenient strategy to demonize, criminalize and incarcerate those who publicly denounce the growing multifaceted, unconstitutional, jackbooted behavior of a government gone mad. Entrapping peaceful groups by infiltrating them and using coercive, bullying tactics by government snitches and provocateurs, to railroad law-abiding citizens into committing crimes they never would have undertaken in the first place, seems solely ‘American’ in nature. For all of the historic red-baiting hysteria about Russia and China’s brutal crackdowns, it’s doubtful that these countries actually INVENT crimes to imprison people. How do I know this? Because they don’t need to. They don’t hide behind a hypocritical facade of democracy. If an individual is problematic to the government they are simply arrested — no need to play mind games for the benefit of an uninformed public to cover their tracks. Their citizens are well aware of the extent of their government’s criminality.

The ‘terrorist’ moniker, now tossed about with as much caution as a knife-wielding psychotic, has little to do with reality and everything to do with the number one threat to an open society — not terrorism — GREED. As long as the U.S. government can continue expanding the myth of terrorists hiding behind every rock, the military, prison and surveillance state will balloon undeterred. In the end, the ‘War on Terror’ has morphed into a form of psychopathic capitalism run amok.” (-Brennan Browne)

“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.” (-Emily Dickinson)

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.” (- Albert Pine)

Every generation pukes forth their own punk celebrities and some spunk celubutards. I fell off the bandwagon sometime around the Humpers, Electric Frankenstein, American Soul Spiders and the NY Loose. You know, right around the time that Richie Edwards went missing, after American Heartbreak’s first album. Some in my age group continued to stay enthused by bands like NOFX, the Queers, Devil Dogs, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, White Stripes, on and on, but not much has really moved me since that Humpers/Leaving Trains tour, or those exciting, early nineties Electric Frankenstein singles that sounded like Alice Cooper replaced Stiv in the Deadboys. Rancid were okay, I guess. I met Lars once, we talked about Hanoi Rocks and Generation X. He was a nice guy. Anybody who signs Joe Strummer to their indie label, is always good in my book. Kids I knew did the liberty spikes Hot Topic Casualties thing one month, the greaser Fonzarelli thing the next. Dorks who knew nothing about country music were getting sleeved with Wanda Jackson and Hank Sr. tattoos, overnight. New Bomb Turks never really did it for me. I’d seen it all before. As Motorcycle Boy’s Francois once sang, “I seen ‘em come and I seen ‘em go…” Grunge was the bum-trip marketing hoax trojan horse that opened the door for all of that horrible sold-out, corporate punk. There’s a band from Norway that absolutely slays me, called SILVER. Not the Sunset Strip band called Silver, with the foxy singer who dates the Prophets Of Addiction dude, no, this is the Silver that writes gonzo rockers that out blast Stereo Junks, but who also pen ballads as pained and beautiful as the Ultras, or Lords Of The New Church. Obviously, we’re all big fans of West Coast boogie spacerock brujos, Captain Zapped. Jello Biafra is still carrying the flag for intelligence, truth, and righteous rebellion. I like Keith Morris’ Off! Landslide Ladies write some cool, upbeat pop songs like Tsar. Jeremy White from the Blessings is guest-starring on the new Rank Outsiders side. The Hangmen, Bermondsey Joyriders, The Jim Jones Revue, Michael Monroe, and Glen Matlock’s Philistines all carry on the noble traditions of that old time rock’n'roll, but if you’re looking for some angry new kid band that’s gonna make you wanna kick out the jams, or who say something new, or even something old in an original way, you’re gonna mostly find a buncha middle class haircuts, in their parent’s Ramones t-shirts, slavishly regurgitating yesterday’s parties. Bring back Jesse Camp, and Pure Rubbish, ya know? Why are you bothering me with all these nonsense kiddie bands, just because they have some money to throw around? You know how I hate that shit. Rich people rarely ROCK. Witness Guns N Roses-before and after. Aerosmith-before and after. Even Buck Cherry-before and after. All the kid bands with the identical razor shags. Where is the rage, the poetry, the courage, or innovation? Remember when rocknroll was entertaining? The Cramps? The Misfits? Sloppy Seconds? Redd Kross? Elvis Hitler? Hell! Even KISS, at this point. I’m bored. Today’s bands? They say nothing, do nothing, bore me to tears, honestly. I thought things could not get any worse than when The Offspring stormed the charts. Boy, was I wrong about that. Good Charlotte? Blink 182? Sum 41? On and on, it went, insufferably dumb, bouncey Mouskateering Money-Punk. Years and years of it. All loathsome, banal, indistinguishable, say-nothing, spaz-wads making teenpop jingles for extreme sports-drinks.

The entire consolidated-media has been weaponised, in the shadows of 9/11. They’ve created a dumbed-down nation of willing nazis, happy to spy on their neighbor’s electronic communications, or feel-up your family for the privilege of paying top-dollar to travel. Anyone who is opposed to torture and indefinite detention, or endless war is being criminalized. Millions are on so-called “terror watch-lists”. If you speak out against pre-emptive invasion and occupation of Middle-Eastern countries, they declare you a terrorist. Dick Cheney’s FEMA camps have been covertly activated under our Great Half-Black Hope, President Obama and his Wall St. bankster handlers. Like Gloating one percenter Mayors Emanuel and Bloomberg. Poor people are begging on every corner, while corporate entertainment shills and the cable disinformation punditocracy cover-up the crimes of the one percent. If you are a major label millionaire like Blackeyed Peas and Lady Gaga, you are part of the problem. In the sixties, seventies, and eighties, our artists spoke out against war and kidnapping of peaceful citizens under Totalitarian regimes. Remember Amnesty International? The Clash? U2? The Doors? John Lennon? Now, they just distract us with bogus lifestyles of the rich and talentless, on non-stop, unreality-show programming. The Republicrats have plans to strip anti-war activists of their citizenship and disappear them to shadowy prison camps, like Gitmo. Green Day are like Diet Coke-they make you fat. They definitely helped “break” our college rock underground, making it safe for dumbfuck processed, High Fructose, phony punk product. I liked that they bravely, if briefly, challenged the fascist Bush juggernaut, but once they made their jolly millions, they conspicuously went dead silent as Obama continued his relentless war on human rights and civil liberties, in seamless continuity with Bush/Cheney policies. Like most all of our establishment Democrats, who don’t realize the irretrievably corrupt two-party dictatorship is rigged like pro-wrestling.

PUNK IN DRUBLIC….

NOFX were loved by zaney suburbanites in the 90′s, for their goofy brand of fart joke humorcore that furrow browed, uptight geezer, buzzkillers like me can’t relate to. I’ve always hated whacky fun rock, really. I dunno why I’m such a sullen creep-the Dictators are as kooky as I can get. Even still, I’ve always valued Fat Mike and his progressive band of mischief making, anti-censorship agitators and instigators, for at least, taking a valiant stand in opposition of capitalist authoritarianism and government oppression. Not merely the class clowns of pop-punk, they had a social conscience, some brains, too, so it was really no surprise to see NOFX join other underground music activists like Alice Bag, glam icon Brett Smiley, Jeff Ward of Gunfire Dance, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, Nine Inch Nails, Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono, Pete Seeger, Radiohead, Crosby and Nash, Peter and Paul, Joan Baez, Michael Franti, Korey Clarke of Warrior Soul, Danny from Mad Juana, Tom Morrello the Night Watchman, etc. etc., in lifting their voices, on behalf of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the interests of the 99%, however brainwashed most of us are, by the jiveass big-media, since the mergers of the nineties. PLEASE TAKE NOTE: There is never any Congressional “gridlock”, when it comes to the Top Secret American domestic spying apparatus of TSA and Homeland Security, denying Americans their most basic and fundamental civil liberties and human rights. No one stood against torture, the Patriot Act, or the NDAA. I like power-pop, not pop-punk, personally. Big difference. When it comes to bright, boppy, smiley happy face punk rock, ya know…make mine NOFX-they might trade primarily in that bratty, old-school, smartass, sarcastic juvenilia, like Dead Kennedys and Circle Jerks did in the old days, but at least, they have a clue. The United States has 5% of the World’s population, but 25% of the World’s PRISON Population-3.1% of Adults in America are behind bars. More people are about to be disappeared, under this malevolent, thoroughly Anti-Democratic, bullshit NDAA law, crafted by McCain and Levin, and signed into law by Obama, authorizing the military to kidnap and imprison taxpayers without trial, on American soil, should some secret bureaucrat decide to arbitrarily declare you a “belligerent” . We are OWNED by shadowy corporations, who keep us feuding for crumbs, mere sustenance, we are house slaves versus field slaves, none of us free, while ruthless war profiteers hide behind Brand Obama, attacking more nations for oil and empire. Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Yemen, and now they’re preparing to help Israel bomb Iran. They’ve poisoned the food, the medicines, the oceans, and the sky. The “security theater” in our airports isn’t really protecting anyone, but it puts billions into the already bulging pockets of Michael Chertoff, John Kerry, and another dozen government officials, who also own stock in the porno-scanners with the cancerous radiation. Do the images of black clad stormtroopers shooting veterans with rubber bullets, pepper-spraying peaceful protesters sitting indian style on the ground, or the hundreds, and thousands of deaths by tasering making YOU feel “safer”? Then YOU are part of the problem. ANY politician who declares he has the right to assassinate or imprison anyone, anytime, with zero due process, no trial by a jury of one’s peers, no evidence of a crime, is a dictator, not a public servant representing the will of the people. America’s dwindling middle class are all strung-out on cable unreality, jock-o-rama sports dumbfuckery, constant consumption, and the social networking surveillance-grid. FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS STAY STUPID! FIND OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING. GET ON THE STREETS! DO SOMETHING!